We went to Keystone on a leisurely Monday night, having read ladyironchef’s recommendation. It really is food worth “eating with your eyes”.

First was the amuse-bouche, which featured halves radish, seared eel, and a spread of cumin and pumpkin, and a delicious charcoal bread with parmesan. The charcoal bread (5/5)was highly delicious and was warm and crisp. Along with their nice touch of having pepper over their butter, this bode well.

Appetiser wasGeorges Bank Sea Scallop (3.75/5) with [Hummus Purée | Confit of Cherry Tomato | Smoked Kurobuta Soil ]. The scallops were well seared and were quite sweet, but nothing amazing. The outstanding thing about the dish was the cherry tomato, which was really sweet. (Grape-level sweetness). (Georges Bank is a fishing bed off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachussetts – home to a famed oyster festival in October – to Nova Scotia)

Main wasSnake River Farms Pork Belly (4/5) with [Kakuni | Blood Orange & Chili Jus | Yukon Chip | Karashi Paint]. I didn’t fall in love with this dish. The texture of the pork was expectedly soft, (as something sous-vide-d for 36 hours and finished in brandy for 10 should be). The taste reminded me a bit of Wang Wang rice crackers. There was a rolling pungency that came from the pork, which probably is due to the meat itself. The Yukon Chips were a bit soggy and a let down. The poached radishes were not bad.

Snake River Farms, a quick Wikipedia search tells me, is the premium provider of Kobe beef in the USA, since importing the bull Fukurutsu from Japan in the early 1990s. Which also means it is part of a most mendacious marketing technique. There is no Kobe beef outside of Japan!!!

I also got to try a bit of the Chilean Seabass Confit. Decent, but not great.

Dessert was a trio of Silken Curd (4.25/5), Valrhona Genoise (4.75/5) , and Nutella Bar (3.5/5). Silken Curd featured two well-desiccated lychees, which tasted every bit as lychee-ish and was a delight to eat along with the Curd.

Valrhona Genoise was a chocolate cake with a hole in the middle, which they filled with something that tasted like condensed milk (in a good way!). What made the dish was eating the chocolate soil with yuzu sorbet. It was crunchy and sweet-chocolatey with a tangy taste. Something to replicate next time with a sorbet and cookie crumbles in my home, methinks.

Nutella Bar was a good hazelnut dessert. However the chocolate beads in the middle of the dish were a bit soggy, and detracted from the crunch I think the chef was going for.

Overall that was the story of the meal – slight flaws in some of the dishes – not fully crisp nutella crunch, soggy yukon fries – that made those dishes fall short of excellence. It was quite good, but I’m not sure if I’ll come back on my own dime.